------
I have asked my 16 year old daughter to stop giving me the daily updates on her grades. Her school has this electronic gradebook that can be accessed anywhere in the world, any time of the day. Hate is a strong word; that is why I choose it.
I hate it.
I hate how it reduces learning to subjective points (can points ever really be objective?).
I hate how it gets my daughter to obsess on her GPA.
I hate how it narrows that focus of family discussions to missing assignments and missed points.
I hate how it shifts my daughter's sense of academic worth from what she is becoming or might someday be, to what she has done in the past.
---------
More than examining the path information inquiry takes me upon, this project has challenged me to look at how I design, administer, and evaluate inquiry-base learning. If my ultimate goal is to provide opportunities for students to become "Expert Information Scientists" (Lamb's Information Age Inquiry webpage) then I first must be willing to take a long hard look my own view of the inquiry process. Lamb compiles this list of expert attributes:
*Pose useful questions to themselves throughout the process
*Identify relevant information and ignore irrelevant information
*Respond to context and select information to address specific needs
*Recognize meaningful patterns and connections in information
*Organize knowledge around key principles and concepts
*Self-regulate their time and efforts including goal setting, time management, self-evaluation, self-motivation
*Self-motivate through varying their methods of study and practice
*Remain flexible in thinking adapting to changing needs
Project #1 was designed in a way that required those skills. Kuhlthau says that inquiry ". . . is a process of seeking information not just finding and reproducing information." Tastad and Collins report students less likely to build habits of the mind and see information inquiry as a process ". . . unless it is presented with a constructivist approach." I am challenged to become a teacher who can design and help others design meaningful learning experiences that get beyond just fact finding and reproducing. I must help studets develop habits of the mind that will assist them on their journey to become expert information scientists.
Kuhlthau talks about the negative emotion that accompanies the various stages of the inquiry process. She is right on. I have seen my own students exhibit those traits, and I , myself, have felt the same in a variety of research experiences. What is enlightening for me, however, is not that those emotions are there, but instead examining what provokes those emotions. This project has helped me see some of the causes. I don't believe it is the process that puts us through turmoil, I believe it is the design the assignment.
In the words of another writer from one of our readings, we must ask "Why are we doing this?" (Abilock) Grant Wiggins (Understanding by Design) says we should be able to answer these two questions about our assignments: 1) So what? and 2) Who cares? Researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi concludes that if the work we design properly balances student aptitude with challenge, the learner will experience "flow" as opposed to a host of other negative emotions -- e.g. anxiety, apathy, boredom, frustration, neutrality, etc.
It is my belief that the negative emotions need not occur, if the assignment is designed effectively to meet the abilities of the learner. Uncertainty and anxiety are symptoms that something has gone wrong in the design or in the execution of that design.
Example: Kalthau writes that "people often attempt to move from selection directly to collection without the essential exploration for the formulation that gives direction to the search." Instead of telling the learner that he is exhibits this behavior, I need to look at what I have done to cause a learner to exhibit that behavior. I need to ask why the learner is feeling the need to skip the essential exploration. Our system has trained us all to be task-oriented and desirous of a completed check-off list. It is not necessarily that we wish to skip stages, but more that we want to be done with a meaningless task, or that our lives are so busy and complicated that we have too little time to expand our discursive horizons.
------
It all comes down to the answer to this question: Is it worth my time?
------
I began this project as a lofty journey to Ithaca, but ended it with an urge to map out my points instead of my learning. Did I cite enough professionals? Did I comment on enough blogs? Were my comments of merit? Did I hit all eighteen bullets on the evaluation list?
My own soapbox advice to my daughter sounded loudly in my ears. "It's the process that matters the most. If you walk away with a deeper understanding then the point count is irrelevant." Oh, but how hard that is when you know points are on the way.
That is the one part of this project that does not work for me. The assessment method. I don't claim to have answers to how to make it better, but I might suggest allowing learners to set our own deadlines and draft our own grade justifications based on the criteria that our teacher/professor sets before us. The eighteen bullets can still exist, but the ownership of the evaluation can be shifted to the learner as opposed to the assessor. I don't think this method would be of much benefit to procrastinators, since I imagine they may never choose a date, but again I have to ask what has caused the procrastination to occur in the first place. I think it is a history of poorly designed assignments that have reinforced that work habit.
------
I want my children (and students) to feel like learning is meaningful and worthwhile. I want them to walk away with skills and confidence, but more importantly a passion for trying to better understand their world.
------
This project was excellent. I enjoyed the ride so much that I don't especially want to move on. If I can somehow take what I have learned to foster that same sense of accomplishment, yearning, and worth in the minds of the learners I work with, I will be thrilled.
One of my favorite real-life constructivists Michael Brandwein says that we make the mistake of trying to engage learners with fun activites. We make the mistake of confusing occupation of time with engagement of minds. Fun is not a goal or a destination, it is a end result of a well-designed and executed plan. It happens when learners feel a sense of accomplishment and personal growth as opposed to a wipe of the brow and a "Whew, am I ever glad that is over."
Project #1 was fun. Let the revolution begin.
5 comments:
I had to share a parting thought--I agree that good planning and support help put learners at ease and ease the discomfort of inquiry, however, I would say that learning is a growth process and necessarily includes a bit of discomfort and feeling disjointed.
Helping our children deal with the negative emotions and find ways to re-frame the new grading system can help ease some of the pain and hopefully refocus them on their true self.
Here is what I miss most about being in a classroom versus taking on-line courses. There is less opportunity for professional dialogue, discomfort, and growth. Comments are made. Seldom responded to, and quickly dismissed to move on to the next assignment. Learning can be a lonely process in the virtual world.
Pastmidnite,
Thank you for challenging a thought in my post. I concur that the growth process often includes discomfort and pain. Life teaches the hardest lessons. This project has reinforced my belief that we as teachers have a responsibility to be conscientous in the design of our work. Negative emotions should be red flags that may or may not indicate that there is a flaw in our design, but we must be willing to consider that possibility. I speak only for myself, but too often I look for the flaw in the learner, or dismiss a legitimate complaint with a "life is tough, get used to it" "life isn't fair, get over it" "we all have to do things we don't like" condescension.
Sometimes I worry about the lack of evident joy exhibited in the learning process. I like what Nietzsche once said, "Man's maturity: to have regained the seriousness that he had as a child at play."
And one more thing!
I had an interesting discussion with our media specialist yesterday about how the research process has shifted since we were in college 20 years ago. Among other things.
*THEN, we spent hours combing through RGPL to find a single reference to our topic, sometimes stretching a few to fit; NOW, there is no shortage of references, and they can be found in seconds.
*THEN, most every source we found was "legitimate"; NOW, discernment becomes a critical skill.
*THEN,you could gather about everything there was to gather; NOW, you must force yourself to stop or you could gather forever.
*THEN, the primary sources we sited were all text, the works cited page was basic; NOW, sources come in every shape and form -- audio, video, virtual, interview.
*THEN, you started in the reference section of the nearest library; NOW, you access your computer.
The weird thing is the assignment that many of our high school teachers are giving and the assessment tools they are using have not changed.
And one more thing . . .
Perhaps the best teacher I have ever had, has challenged me many, many times with his view of learning. He firmly believes that all learning is painful and uncomfortable. In fact he purposely structures his class in a way to create discomfort.
I learned great things in his class.
Post a Comment